by Tripp Ellis
“Where to, sir?” Caldwell asked.
“Anywhere but here,” the president said. “How about Raven Rock?”
“No,” Susan said. “The facility has been compromised.” Susan had constantly been on the phone since they left the West Wing, trying to gather intel.
The president’s eyes grew wide. “That’s one of our most secure facilities.”
Susan’s face looked downcast. “We began the inoculation process in the emergency operations centers.” Her voice was tinged with guilt. “At the time, it made sense to secure those facilities first. I take full responsibility. This was done under my direction.”
“Colonel Caldwell, get us in the air,” the president said. “We’ll figure out where were going later.”
“Yes, sir.” Caldwell darted to the cockpit.
“Susan, find us an EOC that hasn’t been compromised.”
“On it.” Susan scurried off to the telecommunication center.
“Major Steele, you and your team can take a seat here. I’ll be in my stateroom.”
“Yes, sir.” Steele took a seat on the port side of the aircraft. He shoved the football under his seat and strapped in for takeoff. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Romero. Something just wasn’t right about him.
Steele’s train of thought was broken by the sound of gunfire. He peered out of the window and saw airmen on the tarmac gunning down infected. Apparently, Joint Base Andrews wasn’t as secure as they thought.
An attendant locked the main cabin door and the engines spooled up. The aircraft taxied to the runway, and within moments, they were cleared for takeoff. The massive engines propelled the aircraft forward. The chaos on the ground became a distant memory.
8
Duke’s finger wrapped tight around the trigger. He was about to turn Brandi Leigh’s beautiful face into something that resembled ground beef.
“Duke, what are you doing?” Brandi shrieked.
“I’m making it easier on you, baby. You’ve got the infection now.”
“No. Wait, Duke.”
“You got bit, honey.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to turn into one of those things.”
“Yeah, it pretty much does.” Duke was about to squeeze the trigger.
“Wait. I’ve got an idea,” Earl said.
Duke looked at him, incredulous. Earl’s ideas were never very good, he thought.
“Follow me,” Earl said.
Earl led them to the barn, where they tied Brandi Leigh to one of the support beams.
“You have got to be shitting me,” Brandi said. “You can’t just leave me here like this.”
“Just a safety precaution, honey.” Duke said. “If you haven’t turned by the morning, I’ll let you out of the quarantine zone.”
“This is ridiculous,” Brandi said.
“This is the first good idea I think Earl’s ever had.”
“Earl, when I get out of here, your ass is mine.” Brandi was pissed.
“Don’t worry,” Earl said. “I’ve seen people turn in minutes. The fact that you’re still talking right now is a good sign.”
“You know, I hope I do turn. First thing I’m gonna do is bite both of you dipshits.”
“Now, baby. Don’t say something you might regret later,” Duke said. “Come on, Earl, we got shit to do.”
“You can’t just leave me here.”
“I’ll come back and check on you.”
“Duke, I’m hungry.”
“I bet you are,” Duke said with a grin.
“Fuck you.”
“Been there, done that.”
Brandi squinted her eyes and scowled at him.
“I’ll get you something to eat,” Earl said.
“That’s sweet of you, Earl. Why don’t you run inside and get me a whiskey and Coke, some cheesy puffs, and some ranch dressing. If this is my last day, I might as well go out in style, right?”
Earl and Duke left the barn and strolled toward the mobile home.
“I know you’re a little sweet on her, Earl. But she ain’t gonna make it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. They said so on the news. Bites, blood, bodily fluids. That shit will kill you. Hell, you can probably get it from fucking,” Duke frowned and shook his head. “That’s too bad. She was a lot of fun in the sack.”
Inside the trailer, Earl grabbed a bag of cheesy puffs and mixed a drink.
“Hey, go easy on that whiskey,” Duke said. “She can have one drink, but that’s it. Don’t go wasting good whiskey on her. And I tell you, if this goddamn infection spreads, ain’t nobody gonna be able to get a fresh bag of cheesy puffs.” Duke grabbed the bottle of whiskey from Earl and took a swig. Then he moseyed over to the couch and plopped down.
Earl headed for the door.
“And don’t let that little minx get inside your head. She’s a manipulator. You hear me? She’ll say anything to get what she wants. And what she wants, is for you to let her go.” Duke stared Earl down. “And if she gets loose, I’ll shoot you both.”
Earl pushed through the door and marched to the barn. Once inside, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. “Brandi Leigh, I’m back.”
There was no response.
He crept through the barn and saw Brandi’s lifeless body slumped against the beam. Had she died already? He drew closer. She wasn’t moving or breathing. He set the drink, and the cheesy puffs, down on the rusty tractor. Then he went in for a closer look. Her head was drooping. He reached his hand out to lift it up. But before he touched her, she lunged for him and snarled. The ropes restraining her drew tight.
Earl tumbled backwards, trying to escape. He crashed to the ground amid straws of hay.
Brandi burst into laughter. “Gotcha.”
Earl scowled at her. “That’s not funny.”
“Looked funny from here.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you.”
“You don’t have a gun on you, Earl. You left it back at the trailer. Which, under the current circumstances, is a pretty dumb thing to do.”
Earl stood up and dusted himself off. “Maybe I’ll just take the cheesy puffs, and the whiskey and Coke, back to the trailer for myself?”
“You wouldn’t do that.” She pouted and batted her eyelashes at him.
Earl melted a little bit, looking at those big blue eyes staring back at him.
“I was just trying to have some fun,” she said. “Lighten the mood a little bit.”
Earl strolled to the tractor and grabbed the drink and a bag of cheesy puffs. He brought them over to her.
“Now how am I supposed to enjoy this when my hands are tied to this beam?”
Earl shrugged.
“Why don’t you untie me? I swear, I won’t run away.”
“Sorry. Can do that.”
“Why not? Don’t you trust me?” Her voice was breathy and innocent.
“Duke told me not to.”
“Do you do everything Duke tells you?” She was turning on the charm.
Earl stammered. “No.”
“You know, I’m all tied up right now,” her voice was like satin. “You could do anything you wanted to me, and I wouldn’t be able to stop you.”
Earl’s pulse quickened. His face flushed a little. “I would never do something like that.” His eyes fell to the floor.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me. Are you saying you don’t find me attractive?”
“No,” he stammered. His eyes flicked back up to meet hers. “I mean, yes, but—”
“I’ve thought about you for a long time, Earl.”
“You have?”
“Sometimes, at night. I dream about you. Very, very naughty dreams.”
Earl swallowed hard. His heart was pounding. Her velvety voice sent a tingle down his body. All of the blood left his brain, and Little Earl was close to being in charge.
“Why don’t you untie me. Then you wouldn’t have to feel guilt
y about doing whatever you wanted to me.” Brandi bit her lip, and looked at him with porn star eyes. “Or, if you want, I could do things to you?”
Earl gulped. Little Earl was standing at full attention.
Brandi arched her chest out, and made things jiggle. Her ribbed cotton tank top was thin and left little to the imagination. Her firm nipples poked through.
Earl’s eyes bugged out, and he almost had a heart attack.
“Don’t you see anything you want?"
9
“I can assure you, President Petrov, we have the situation under control.” The president sat at his desk in the office of Air Force One.
Steele sat across from him in a leather chair, clutching the nuclear football. Susan Norton was in the room as well. Clouds raced by as they streaked through the air. Every now and then, Steele caught a glimpse of the F-45 fighter escort that accompanied the plane.
“Perhaps you and I do not share the same definition of control,” Petrov said with a thick Russian accent. His voice crackled out over the speakerphone.
“We are implementing containment procedures as we speak,” Johnson said.
“And we are implementing containment protocols of our own.”
“There is no cause for alarm, President Petrov.”
“You might not find this alarming, but we certainly do. Our predictions estimate a 95% infection rate across the continental United States within 72 hours. Followed by Canada, Central, and South America. If you cannot contain the situation within 48 hours, I will be forced to take decisive action.”
Johnson paused a moment to take in the gravity of Petrov’s words. “Are you threatening military action against United States of America?”
“I have unilateral support for a strategic nuclear strike to create a containment zone. I will give you a choice, Mr. President. Contain this outbreak, or we will contain it for you.”
The line went dead. Johnson’s face went pale. He pressed a button on the phone, disconnecting the call. His head fell into his hands. Johnson was panic stricken. “This is all my fault.”
“Sir, you made the best choice you could with the information available,” Susan said.
Sweat beaded on the president’s forehead.
“I’ve located an emergency operations center in Texas that seems to be operational,” Susan said.
“Get us there.”
Susan picked up a onboard phone and connected with the cockpit.
“Yes, ma’am. We’ll head for Houston,” Caldwell said. He corrected course, and the massive aircraft rolled and arced to the left.
Caldwell leveled the plane, then glanced over at his copilot, Lt. Colonel Romero. He looked pale and sickly. Almost green. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He loosened his collar, trying to get some air.
“You feeling okay?” Caldwell asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. My stomach’s a little queasy. Must have gotten some bad sushi at lunch.”
“You didn’t get the vaccination, did you?”
“No. Of course not,” he lied.
Caldwell eyed him.
Romero went into a coughing fit. Soon, he wasn’t just coughing up phlegm—blood was spraying from his mouth. Crimson blood peppered the control panel. Romero went into convulsions. After a moment, his body went limp.
Caldwell connected to the president and stammered into the headset. “Sir, we have a situation.”
“Steele, go see what’s going on,” the president said.
The major launched out of his seat and bounded down the corridor to the cockpit.
A Secret Service agent standing outside the cockpit door put up his hand. “No unauthorized personnel beyond this point.”
“There’s a problem with the pilot, you moron.”
The agent eyed Steele suspiciously as he reached for the intercom and called into the cockpit. But there was no response.
The reinforced cockpit door was blast proof and was required to remain locked during the flight. It could withstand the explosion from a thermal grenade. Only the pilot could unlock the door. Though, there was a failsafe procedure in case the pilots became incapacitated. The Secret Service agent kept ringing the cockpit with no response. He banged on the door several times.
Suddenly, the plane rolled and dove. Gravity flung Steele against the bulkhead. After a moment, the plane leveled out.
“What’s the emergency access protocol?” Steele asked.
Finally realizing something was wrong, the agent accessed the code pad near the door. He punched in a five digit number, then hit the pound sign. This triggered the emergency access procedure. The green LED on the code pad flashed.
Once the emergency access protocol is initiated, the pilot has thirty seconds to override—otherwise the door will unlock for five seconds.
There was no override from within the cockpit.
After thirty seconds, the LED stopped flashing. The control door locking system clicked open. The Secret Service agent burst into the cockpit.
Blood coated the windows. Romero was gnawing on Caldwell, tearing his flesh apart. He snarled at the agent and lunged for him.
The agent stumbled back out of the cockpit, rattling off several shots. But they were all body shots. Several stray rounds sparked off the instrument cluster, shattering gauges and displays. Smoke wafted from the controls.
The plane dove abruptly.
Romero kept coming. He pounced on the agent, knocking him down. Then tore into his flesh.
The agent screamed in agony.
Steele grabbed Romero’s head, twisting it 180 degrees. Vertebrae crackled and popped. Romero collapsed to the ground.
The agent would turn anytime now. Steele put a bullet into his skull. Then he stepped into the cockpit and put another careful round in Caldwell's head. Then he climbed into the copilot’s seat, pulled back on the controls, and leveled the craft out.
Alarms were sounding. The gauges were going haywire. Major Steele had never flown something of this size. He was completely out of his element.
Air Force One was equipped with a sophisticated autopilot system. The thing could practically take off, fly, and land itself. All you really had to do was punch in the coordinates, and the plane would fly there. But it seemed the automated system had been damaged by the stray gunfire. Flying a CAV was one thing, but this was a different ballgame.
The window in front of Steele had a .357 round from the Secret Service agent’s P277 embedded in it. The pilot’s brains were splattered all over the other side of the cockpit. The instrument panels were giving inaccurate readings. And to make matters worse, they were heading into a storm system.
Pretty soon, Steele wouldn’t be able to tell up from down, or right from left. He certainly wasn’t rated as an instrument only pilot. He didn’t have a rating at all. But that was the least of his problems.
Another alarm sounded, frantically. The onboard flight control spoke. A soothing woman’s voice said, Heatseeking missile detected. Deploy countermeasures immediately.
The F-45 Raptor had fired on Air Force One. The pilot had to be infected, Steele thought. It was the only explanation. Steele imagined the pilot twitching about in the Raptor’s cockpit. Somehow he must have acquired missile lock and fired. It seemed that Joint Base Andrews didn’t have the virus contained after all.
Steele took evasive action as best he could. He rolled the plane and banked a sharp turn. The G force slammed everyone against the bulkhead. But Steele couldn’t avoid the inevitable.
The heatseeker slammed into one of the engines. It exploded in a massive ball of flames. Ruptured fuel lines sprayed out, feeding the fire. The jet fuel was a mix of pure kerosene and anti-freeze. It had a much higher flashpoint than gasoline, but that didn’t stop it from burning.
In the cockpit, an emergency light flashed overhead. An alarm sounded. Steele reached up and pulled down the engine cutoff. This would cut the fuel and hydraulics to the engine. Most of the time, this would be enough to put out any fires, and the other
three engines could handle the load. But most of the time you aren’t getting hit with a heat seeking missile.
Steele was having a hard time keeping the aircraft level. It was descending rapidly. The alarm was still sounding.
Each engine had two extinguishers. Steele activated the first one. When that didn’t work, he activated the second. But that didn’t solve the problem either. The overhead warning light was still flashing. This fire wasn’t going out.
Then another alarm sounded. A second engine was on fire.
Air Force One was going down.
10
“Duke said you’d do this,” Earl said.
“Do what,” Brandi replied.
“Try to get inside my head.”
“Oh, baby you’re confused. I don’t want to get inside of you. I want you inside of me.” Her satiny voiced breezed across his ears.
“Manipulation. That’s what you’re doing.”
“That’s a pretty big word for you, Earl.”
“I ain’t stupid, despite what everybody thinks.”
“Yeah, you are. Cause you just passed up the best piece of ass you’re ever going to get.” She went from sexy to full bitch in a half second.
Earl clenched his teeth, spun around, and stomped toward the door.
“I’m sorry, Earl,” Brandi called after him. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
Earl marched back to the trailer and burst through the door. Duke was in the middle of a massive bong hit. He exhaled a cloud of blue smoke. The air was thick with haze. You could get a contact high just standing in the room.
“You fuck her?” Duke said. He was playing Armored Assault: Urban Tank Warrior. It was an advanced mechanical war simulator. The mobile home filled with the sound of destruction.
“No,” Earl said.
“You sure about that?”
“If I fucked her, I wouldn’t be back here so soon.” Earl tried to act macho. But Earl was a virgin, and Duke knew it.